Explore Alliance Presents: How Do You KNOW? – Episode #18: 'Mapping Constellations'

Humans have attempted to map the stars in the sky since antiquity.  The earliest Western catalog of stars was created by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 129 BC, building on earlier work going back to the Babylonians. From China, an early example is called the Dunhuang chart, now kept at the British Library in London, is a complete star atlas dating to the 3rd and 4th century BC from Chinese astronomers Shi Shen, Gan De and Wu Xian.

Attempts to map the stars with ever more accuracy have given humanity a greater sense of our place in the universe. With them we not only navigate our telescopes across the heavens, but our spacecraft as well.